How good do you think you are at reading people? I remember being taught once that reading people was part of the job of a coach. Checking eye movements, facial expressions and body language. But then I began to wonder about when we learn to read people and I thought about my primary teaching days. Characters in children's reading scheme books would have very distinct expressions and in the text we would be told what that expressions meant. We also used to help children to learn about emotions by looking at simple emoji faces and matching them to an emotion. Maybe that's where the idea that we can know how other people are feelings starts but I wonder how helpful it is to us now. Can we really know what someone else is feeling  and therefore thinking or does that fill our heads with unnecessary noise? 

When we make up the thoughts and feelings of another person, that is a reflection of our perception and thought not theirs. We can only perceive through the lenses of our own thinking and when we realise this, it stops making so much sense to make up the psychological contents of other people. And that's then something else you don't have on your mind. What a relief!

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